The Legion Demonology Warlock: IMPlosion Edition!

The goal of this guide is to provide both new and returning players with an effective and fun way to play your Demonology Warlock while leveling in Legion.(This guide is not intended as a max dps endgame guide)

Before we start, I'd just like to point out 1 set bonus and 1 item that really makes this spec shine and work very well; The tier17 2p bonus: Shadow Council's Robes This 2p is just awesome. Say you spend 4 shards, that means you have a 50% to get 6 imps instead of 4.The class trinket from Hellfire Citadel: Fragment of the Dark Star Speaks for itself. Moar imps (The %chance will vary depending on the ilvl of your trinket)

For returning Demonology Warlock players, let me just start off by saying; Forget everything you thought you knew about Demonology Warlocks. They're changed.We are now back to using soul shards, and there are 2 (3 if you count Aoe) ways to generate them. Shadowbolt is still your spammable spell, generating 1 Shard per cast. Doom which is no longer the DoT it used to be, but rather a "delayed detonation" type spell that generates 1 Soul Shard when it deals damage. This will not typically give you much soul shards while leveling since mobs are likely to die before it deals damage. Demonwrath has an RNG element to it, but it will generate a lot of shards if used when you're actually doing AoE (4+ mobs).

You have primarily two ways of spending your shard.Hand of Gul'dan which now consumes 1-4 Soul Shards, dealing damage based on number of shards spent and summons 1-4 Wild Imps, again based on number of shards spent. Do note that there is no way of controlling the amount of shards this spell consumes other than paying attention to your current number of Soul Shards. If you, for instance, have 4 Shards, it WILL consume 4 Shards.Call Dreadstalkers. This has a flat cost of 2 Soul Shards, and it's a very straight-forward spell. It does exactly what the tooltip says.(Please note that all of your standard demons (Imp, Felguard, Felhunter, etc) cost 1 Soul Shard to summon, and so does Infernal and Doomguard.)

Next step is taking a look at the talents I have chosen and the reason I chose those talents.The spec I have put together is as stated in the beginning not intended for maximum damage, but for a smooth leveling experience.Tier 1 Talent:Demonic Calling. Simple talent, Shadowbolt and Demonwrath has a chance to make Call Dreadstalkers cost 0 Shards. I chose this talent because I would rather spend my shards on Hand of Gul'dan, the reason for this is found in the next talent tier.Tier 2 Talent: Implosion, Suicide Imps, Kamikaze Krazies, call it whatever you like, your imps explode. At first glance you may think "But this spec is just about summoning as much demons as possible now, how is this a good choice?". It probably isn't a good choice in terms of raiding and endgame, but for leveling and short fights this talent provides amazing burst. The damage dealt by this spell is counted PER IMP. If you have 4 imps, it will be 4x(200% Spell Power) in damage to your target and all enemies close to the target. Tier 3 Talent: Demon Skin. This talent row has little impact on your gameplay. I chose this particular talent simply because it passively regenerates an absorb shield (even outside of combat) and because Soul Link Demonology Passive causes this absorb shield to passively heal you for a small amount.Tier 4 Talent:Hand of Doom. Choosing this talent over Power Trip was a choice made mostly to reduce the amount of time you need to spend putting up Doom on mobs while leveling, you'll spend less time preparing for fights and more time simply fighting, one more global cooldown free to cast Shadowbolt for a guaranteed Shard and more Hand of Gul'dan casts, which will mean smoother killing with Implosion.Tier 5 Talent:Dark Pact. This talent row has little impact on your gameplay. I chose this talent because the 'oh shit' value of this spell is better than slight boosts to mobility while questing/leveling. Tier 6 Talent:Grimoire of Synergy. After doing a lot of testing it seems all the grimoires are fairly equal in terms of damage, but Synergy marches ahead for this Suicide Imp spec. The damage dealt by Implosion is increased by this grimoires damage proc, and it procs way more often now. Synergy proc + 4ish imps + Implosion = Dead mob. (or mobs, if there are more of them around)Tier 7 Talent: Soul Conduit. Free shards to cast more Hand of Gul'dan. Simple as that.

To use this build for actually leveling, you will want to maintain Demonic Empowerment on your Felguard and your Dreadstalkers (maintaining this on imps is not very important for this particular build, as imps are summoned just to nuke stuff).With our Tier 1 Talent you will rarely need to spend Soul Shards on Call Dreadstalkers, and I rarely cast it if I don't have a proc from Demonic Calling. Your main focus is to generate shards with Shadowbolt, use those shards to summon imps with Hand of Gul'dan (the more the merrier, pay close attention to shards you may get refunded with Soul Conduit), and when you have a few imps and maybe a Synergy proc; Implosion and pick up your loot.